We fished south today setting up in 110 feet of water. First fish came on a 200 copper with a Natural Glow Captains Choice Cut Plug. It was a good size King. That 200 went one more time but we missed that one. A pair of regular size DW Blue Skinny Jeans on an out down set at 50 feet went twice. Our best rod was a high wire diver out 300 with a 10″ White Slick Spin Doctor/Pickled Sunshine Dreamweaver Meat Rig. An 8″ White Crush Spin Doctor/Pickled Sunshine Action Fly stacked with a mag Fuzzy Bear Modified Blue Dolphin 110 down on an out down went twice. One hit the flasher/fly and the other the spoon. Our biggest King came on a 300 copper with an 8″ White Crush Spin Doctor/Pickled Sunshine Action Fly. We took a King on a mag glow spoon on a 350 copper and another King on our Trout rig. an 8″ Chrome Spin Doctor/Blue Chrome WhirlyGig with glow wings. The top picture was from yesterdays charter. I attended a funeral out of town and Capt. Russ Soper and 1st mate Corey did a fine job … [Read more...]

Thank you Jennifer, Mike, Jon and Alex for joining us. The fish were not cooperative with us today. We started in PM Lake and immediately had a rip on 3 colors leadcore with Wonderbread plug. Shortly after we took a nice king on a 4 color leadcore with mixed veggie Captain choice plug, several rounds later we toiled with a nice one on a high diver out 65 with uv white slick 10 inch spindoctor / green moo moo meatrig. The bite shut down do we ran to the 00s and set up in 100 fow. After trolling for a couple hours with no bites we pulled and ran south to 200 fow. We hit a nice steelhead on a three color leadcore / green jeans moonshine spoon and he spit the hook after a run and 3 jumps, circling back we hit another fish on 350 copper with 8 inch Dreamweaver Spindoctor dragon slayer / green mile meatrig. .. that one twisted off also.
Rodmaster Fishing Charters
Ludington, Michigan
>Boat Location: 846 South Lakeshore Drive,
Ludington, Michigan, MI 49431 … [Read more...]

Thanks to the Wickens team for joining us today! We fished back up north of port this am but the bite was a lot tougher than yesterday.
We had 8 fish on and boated 5. The water was 20 degrees warmer with very little bait. We lost a monster king on a 3 color lead core / green jeans spoon very first light. The remainder bites were 8 in netminder spindoctor / blue fairways meat rig on a low diver out 100 ft, rigger at 25 with Blue Jean spoon, 4 color leadcore / naked jordo spoon, and 5 color leadcore / orange green proking spoon.
Rodmaster Charters
Ludington, Michigan
… [Read more...]

Bending Limits Sportfishing Charters of Saugatuck Michigan reports excellent catches of Coho on body baits-on flat lines, 1,2,3,4,5 colors of lead core with copper back mini streaks have been very good. We’re also catching fishing down deep. anywhere from 55 to 280 feet down on the downriggers!!! These fish seem to like spin doctors and Big Weenie flies.
Our best fly as always is the Proctologist. These fish really seem to change the baits they’re biting on, on a daily basis. One day they really want the flies, the next they seem to love the spoons. The key right now is it run as many rods as possible, with as many different baits to start out with, and let the fish tell you what they want!<a … [Read more...]

What a great week of fishing off of Holland and Saugatuck. The creels ranged from 10 to 20 fish per trip with lake trout exceeding 20 pounds and Chinook reaching the mid 20 pound range. In addition to the Chinook salmon and lake trout there were steelhead up to 12 pounds and coho pushing 10 pounds. Every day we had kings hit our lures run from 30 foot down to the bottom, however we did not catch the kings every day. A 20+ pound king will take off 600 foot (or more) of line with the initial hit and were it goes is anybodies guess, however you can bet that it will be into other lines producing tangles and often lost fish and gear.
The salmon, as I said will hit 150 foot copper to 350 foot of copper with spoons and flashers and flies and they also hit on the flashers and flies that we ran on the bottom for lake trout. So basically you fish from 30 foot to 110 foot and what hits is often a surprise—often lake trout but some time steelhead, king salmon or coho salmon.
Silver and UV … [Read more...]

What an interesting week this has been. Though out the week, when we left the dock we never knew what the day would produce. We started the week like we ended last week with 90% of the creel consisting of lake trout and the remaining 10% being steelhead and kings. By Wednesday the creels consisted of 50% lake trout and 50% kings and steelhead. Thursday and Friday produced creels consisting of 90% kings and 10% lake trout and steelhead. By Saturday we were back to primarily lake trout with an occasional silver fish. Fishing between fronts on Sunday we caught some coho along with some steelhead, lake trout and kings. Even though the fishing was unpredictable, the size of the fish was very good with catches having an average of 11 or 12 pounds per fish. The kings that we caught this week ranged from 16 to 22 pounds. We got to a point in the middle of the week were we decided that “less was more”. We had to reduce the number of copper lines and divers we ran because the kings would hit and … [Read more...]

Captain Bill Meyers of Delta Dawn Charters report that Northern U.P. Lake Michigan port of Manistique ON FIRE
The salmon showed up 3 weeks early, the Alewife have been in the river since the first of June, and the walleye have been hard to catch! There are balls of bait everywhere. The lake trout, steelhead, Kings, and walleye are just stuffed full! We are getting good numbers of kings, in the 20 lb. range, with the biggest so far being 34.55 lbs. l'm sure there are some bigger ones around! Most boats are getting their limits with half of them being Kings. Fisherman are also getting a mixed bag of fish- lakers, steelhead, and the grand prize King. The fish are in 40 to 90 feet of water with the best bite being on spoons pulled on copper or lead.
Good luck and have some fun fishing.
Captain Bill Meyers of Delta Dawn Charters … [Read more...]

The kings started to show up in the creels more frequently this past week. We caught kings that weighed 18 to 21 pounds and in addition some of the lake trout exceeded this (there was a trout that pushed 30 pounds). The creels are still predominated by the lake trout however there are some steelhead and some kings mixed in. The best fishing continues to be in the 100 foot depth from Holland to 4 miles south of Saugatuck.
The lake trout are still being caught on the bottom with spin n glos and mirage flies pulled behind silver flashers and dodgers on the downriggers and wire dipsy divers. The best set ups for the salmon are 350 and 250 foot of copper with bloody nose and coyote ugly spoons. We did take some salmon off the bottom with silver flashers and mirage flies behind the wire dipsies. The steelhead are in the upper 50 foot of the water column and are being taken on orange crush spoons.
Still no good reports on the perch out of Saugatuck and Holland. The only good report I … [Read more...]

This past week produced some very good fishing between fronts that came in
mid week and on the weekend. The creel consisted of mainly lake trout with
a couple of steelhead and/or salmon thrown in each day with creel numbers
of 10 to 20 fish per trip. On one of our multi boat charters, a boat boated
a lake trout that pushed 30 pounds and there were also chinook salmon taken
that pushed 25 pounds. Not a lot of salmon being caught, however there are
some very good sized salmon out there. The lake trout are also very nice
size, with the catches averaging about 10 pounds each.
We are fishing from 85 foot of water to 110 foot of water. The steelhead
are hitting any spoons that are orange and silver and orange and red that
are pulled on 5 color lead core and/or 100 foot of copper. There are also
some steelhead taken on 3 color lead core with orange and red thin fins.
The best rigs for the salmon continue to be the super slim coyote ugly and
the bloody nose pulled on 200 and … [Read more...]

This past week we saw all types of weather conditions with 90 + degree conditions with no wind to a 55 degree day with 30 knot winds and 8 foot seas. We saw the water temperature go from the high 40's to the mid 60's and then to the mid 40's over night and now slowly increasing into the high 50's. During the week we began fishing in front the piers, then moved out to 90 foot of water, then back in front the piers and today we were back out in 80 foot of water. Needless to say, there was no consistency
to the week, however, the fishing was good with creel limits ranging from 2 to 10 fish per trip. The 2 fish catch does not sound very good however we had more than 10 steelhead on and fighting during the trip. If you fish steelhead you know that often you need three fish on to land one.
Around the piers the best lure for the steelhead continues to be Thin Fins (Silver, Gold/Red, Red/Black, Orange/Red) run on flat lines, 2 and 3 color lead core and on the downriggers.
When we moved … [Read more...]

June 27, Fishing Report
Lake water temperature is beginning to warm and most of the fish have left the shallow waters around the piers. However we had another week of good fishing out of Holland and Saugatuck producing creel numbers of 9 – 12 consisting of lake trout and steelhead. The best fishing was in 70 to 110 foot of water with lake trout caught bouncing the bottom and the steelhead hitting at 20 to 50 foot down.
The best combination for the lake trout, continues to be metal Gold Star dodgers and silver spin doctors with spin n glos (yellow/silver, green/yellow and double trouble glow). These are run on the bottom on the downriggers and on the low wire divers. The steelhead were caught on the high divers (125 to 150 ft. out) with blue bubble flasher and flies and silver UV flashers and Oceana flies. We also caught steelhead on 100 copper and 250 copper with orange and green spotted super slim spoons.
I have not had any good reports on the perch fishing and the steelhead … [Read more...]

Good fishing again today. No doubles or triples but the action was steady. After losing the first 2 fish our crew didn’t lose another one that hooked up. We fished south of Ludington between 70 and 90 feet of water. Our wire divers fished on or near the bottom were once again our hot rods. We took 2 fish on a rigger with a set of silver cow bells and a blue & silver Spin-N-Glo. Three fish came on a high wire diver with a chrome dodger/yellow Spin-N-Glo. The rest of our catch came on 8″ Chrome Spin Doctors with either a Spin-N-Glo or a Dreamweaver WhirlGig. I’m really likening the WhirlyGig. It seems to ride just a little higher than a Spin-N-Glo and doesn’t get as weeded up as they do. … [Read more...]

Fishing is picking up on The Joe! Water still a little dirty and leaves were a challenge this past weekend! Team Lil Ho was fortunate to muster a team 3 fish limit to win the Battle Creek Steelheaders River Tournament over the Thanksgiving weekend! Also taking the Big Fish with a 9.14 Buck Steelie! #YakiamaMagLip took the 2 large fish and the skipper came on spawn! I credit #OkumaLowProfile LC for helping keeping the right length for less leaves and getting bit! Thanks BC Steelheaders for hosting! ... See MoreSee Less

BeautiesBig ones 2 at a time! I have a few days left in November and December but not many. My January and February are mostly open as of now for those that like good fishing and do not mind the cold. 616-570-2946 ... See MoreSee Less

At our annual business meeting Captain Mike Darke received an award for "Acts of Heroism and Bravery".

"On behalf of fellow members of the Ludington Charter Boat Association and Michigan Charter Boat Association in recognition of bravery and heroism. On July 18, 2017, Mike and his crew aboard Lie A Lot Charters, rescued five people from their burning and sinking boat on Lake Michigan waters, near Ludington Michigan. His quick thinking actions and servant attitude saved the lives of these individuals." ... See MoreSee Less

I'm disappointed that they don't open the weirs back up on the Little Manistee. Past several years there have been no salmon or steelhead getting through upstream to naturally spawn. Very Sad. Who is responsible for keeping the Weir closed ??

Doug, Jerry, and Steve from the Ann Arbor and Lewiston area had a great afternoon on the big pond. 5 different species hit the deck including 4 Kings, 2 Steelhead, an Atlantic Salmon, a giant 15# Sheephead, and an uneducated seagull. What a mess the bird made with tangling up 7 lines before we got it straightened out. The crew left with some fine eating fillets for the table. We we definitely be chasing some more of these delicious treats very soon. Mixed bag Fishing at it's finest. Tight Lines All. CBC

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The Michigan Charter Boat Association represents over 600 professional captains that serve over 100 ports in Michigan. As one of Michigan's largest recreational organizations, member captains operate fishing charters on the Great Lakes, River Guides on Michigan's thousands of miles of steams and rivers, Sail boat charters out of many Michigan ports of call, Scuba Dive charters in Michigan's shipwreck dive preserves, and scenic cruises exploring the beauty of Michigan's shoreline, lighthouses, or a lake vacation adventure. These businesses contribute to Michigan's tourism economy and are vital to the region. Michigan Charter Boat Association Captains and their vessels meet all state and federal laws.